More physicians are performing cardiac catheterizations by accessing the heart through wrist arteries rather than those in the leg, reducing patient recovery time, according to a Pittsburgh Tribune-Review report.
Many payors pay for the alternate site and there is less patient bleeding, according to the report. Women, specifically, benefit from radial catheterization as opposed to femoral catheterization since they tend to have more bleeding after the latter.
Studies have shown the transradial approach reduces the need for post-procedure blood transfusions by 50 percent, according to the report.
Read the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review report on radial cardiac catheterization.
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